


Look Out - Aliens!

by silberstreif



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, Coffee, Humanity is not happy, POV Outsider, Real locations and procedures, TF vs Humanity comparison
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5894689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silberstreif/pseuds/silberstreif
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It could have been a really nice and cushy job. Drink your coffee, do your work, drink more coffee, don't care about the world. In fact it was.<br/>And then <i>they</i> came and everything went FUBAR. Couldn't they have chosen another planet?</p><p>Note: This is not so much fanfiction, as (hopefully) realistic short stories what Transformers can do and what it would mean for humanity. How and when would we notice them for the first time? Could we win battles? etc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Out - Aliens!

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: Starfire 201
> 
> A really old oneshot. I think it was written for a speedwriting prompt on livejournal, then held back because the bunnies multiplied and then abandoned because time is finite. Still, it is a precious tiny idea, and thanks to recent talks with other fans about humans and their differences to the good TFs (rizobact ;) ) I thought about it again.
> 
> Listed as multichapter, because I have still ideas, hope and unfinished pieces on my pc.

**Seen through the radio telescope**

 

 

Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico  
00:33 am

 

The observatory was completely quiet as John Walton walked through the hallways to get himself the second pot of coffee of his nightshift. It was so quiet and eerie, thanks to the dimmed down lights, that it would've been the ideal starting place for any horror movie. When he had come to the Arecibo Observatory he had thought it a great idea to volunteer for the nightshift; after all, nearly no colleagues around meant a much higher chance that he would be the one to make a meaningful discovery.

That enthusiasm had vanished quite fast. He had soon learned that the Arecibo Observatory might have the largest radio telescope in the world and state of art computers to analyse the data, but the really important research areas were somewhere else nowadays. In CERN or within NASA headquarters building new satellites.

Meanwhile, he was stuck here listening into the universe hoping for a tiny – any really - change of the white noise of the universe, while drinking bad coffee. And the coffee was exceptionally bad. John thought that on some days this coffee could win the competition for the worst coffee on this planet. After all, it was not only bitter, it was so acid that a scientist two hallways down from his office swore that it had eaten itself through her desk.

Still, it was strong and exactly what he needed now.

Watching the coffee machine working hard in their tiny kitchen, he wondered if NASA would finance this observatory for much longer. Washington had cut NASA's budget again and everyone knew that they were high on the obsolete list. That they functioned as well as they did had probably more to do with pride and the tiny words "the largest" than anything substantially.

Finally, the coffee machine gave a last gurgle and he took his wonderful, steaming pot. The smell alone was enough to wake him up and he walked back to the computer room significantly faster.

The computer room was the heart of the observatory and where the raw data went through the very first analysis. It had many screens, several chairs and one chair that was somewhere near the same universe as comfortable. It was into that chair he sank after putting his pot on the table. He leant back and stared at the ceiling which really needed to be painted, because some scientist – no one knew who – was always smoking during the night shift.

It irked John that many were pointing towards him, even though he had quit more than eight months ago. With a sigh, he filled his cup. Was it possible to replace a nicotine addiction through a caffeine one? If yes, he was well on the way to it.

He checked the screens habitually, when he took his first sip. Hot, of course, and he grimaced a bit, but drank more anyway. The screens showed nothing but the familiar columns of figures racing across them. They made the quite noise quantifiable and many had likened it to listening to the heart beat of the universe.

Suddenly, he frowned. The third screen in the back was curiously blank – no, the numbers were simply frozen. A malfunction? He tried to get the affected feed of figures on his own screen, and it worked without problems.

He breathed a small sigh of relief. The software program was still running, so it might have just crashed or frozen…

All thoughts stopped when he saw the error message of the program – which wasn't one at all. No, it read: Anomaly found. And highlighted a specific section.

Adrenaline flooded his body as he realised that maybe this was it. Maybe he had really found something! He ordered the program to print the stuff out and raced to the printer in the next room, which sprang to life with a rattle. The page came out very slowly and he had to grip the table to not rip it out already.

Finally, he could take the page, which was full of neatly arranged figures with barely any gaps between them as was so typical for the white noise. He felt heady, so much! A bit startled, he noticed that the printer was still working and decided to wait until the end of the signal.

Again, he read the page and yes, this was definitely similar stuff to the only strange signal found before: 1977, the Wow-Signal which was until today, 15 seconds ago, the only sign of maybe-alien life out there. And it had only been what – 8 signs long? There were already dozens of figures on this page alone and so much more was coming!

The printer kept working though, and the excitement passed a bit. This was surely now over twenty pages… he counted them. Thirty, then forty. How much paper was inside the printer? Finally, he just took the pages with him back to the computer room, not willing to wait any longer. Just what was it that he had found? An explosion from a neutron star far away? A jet stream of a black hole of another galaxy?

But these signals seemed too clear to be that far away…

He looked through the papers, and noticed that every half-page or so there was the same combination of figures. A wave of signals then? He marked them with a red circle, feeling giddy with the eureka-feeling coursing through him.

There it was again, and here. And then he found even more similarities. There was a repeat and here. It nearly looked… not really like a wave, or a single signal… the joy abated a bit when he turned to the computer program again. He knew he only had five more hours until his colleagues came in and the more he could show them, the more glory he could reap. His name would be famous! In the evening news maybe even! That would show his family, who had told him again and again that he should get a halfway decent, better paying job than hunting for nothing.

He stopped the analysing program of the supercomputer and diverted all calculating power to the anomaly found. How many repeats were there? It took several tries under different settings, until he had trustworthy results.

And what results they were! This was no wave of some explosion. It was too regular, too controlled, entirely too different. Too alien.

His breath hitched.

Was this really the second hint? No, maybe even proof? As a child he had been fascinated with the possibilities of aliens, had loved to read about the searches for intelligent life outside of Earth, about Martians and aliens from Alpha Centauri. When he had become a scientist and actually met SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) followers, it had already been on the decline. Aliens – if they existed – weren't really the main concern anymore and NASA cut any budget for their searches, including the one of the Arecibo Observatory.

The only thing that had remained was the training he had received on the first day: What to do when you find an alien signal. They had laughed about it then.

Now, though, now he remembered and gulped. Was this really an alien signal? What if he was wrong? Worse, what if he was right? And why would they get it now and never before?

He tried to recall his training. Vaguely, he remembered something saying he had to call a number and sent the data.

He probably should. From the next room he could still hear the printer and there was no way to cover the signal up as something natural by now. This was as plain alien as it could get.

Aliens, he had never really thought… He stood up and walked down the hallways to his own tiny office, which was stuffed full with paper and empty cups. A quick search for the notebook with emergency numbers (he found it beneath the report for the year 2007) and yes, there it was – the NASA emergency telephone number. It had been a joke for years. Fire in the kitchen? Call NASA. Ants in the computer room? Call NASA. It didn't seem so funny anymore.

The telephone nestled between walls of paper, right next to his computer screen, looked foreboding. What if he was wrong? He would be the joke of the whole community.

Worse, what if he was right?

Yes, he forced himself to accept, these really were aliens. And that they suddenly and now got those signals with such strength meant they were very near. Kuiper belt and Pluto near, which was as good as a stone's throw away.

He called. The voice on the other end was nice and only said he should sent the data. He did and the call ended after he promised that he would keep himself available.

Really, what did they think he would do, leave the planet?

Suddenly, he noticed that his hands were cold and wet.

Fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arecibo Observatory does indeed exists. But it is now only the 2nd biggest telescope anymore. (I did mention this oneshot is old? ^^"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory
> 
> WOW!-signal happened really in 1977: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal


End file.
